5th Feb 2019 07:21
LONDON (Alliance News) - BP PLC on Tuesday said earnings for 2018 came in comfortably ahead of consensus, more than doubling on the prior year, with Upstream in particular doing well.
For 2018, BP's underlying replacement cost profit, the oil major's preferred metric, came in at USD12.72 billion, up from USD6.17 billion in 2017. Market consensus had seen a figure of USD11.88 billion.
Fourth quarter underlying RC profit was USD3.48 billion, up from USD2.11 billion the same period a year before. Expectations had been for underlying RC profit of USD2.63 billion.
Operating cash flow for the full year, excluding payments related to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, was USD26.1 billion, up from USD24.1 billion in 2017.
Annual revenue was USD298.76 billion, up 24% from USD240.21 billion. For the fourth quarter alone, BP's revenue was USD75.68 billion, up from USD67.82 billion.
BP increased its fourth quarterly dividend by 2.5% on the year to 10.25 US cents. It bought back USD355 million of shares in 2018, and plans to keep buybacks going, and to "fully offset the impact of scrip dilution" by the end of 2019.
BP's net debt at the end of 2018 was USD44.1 billion, up from USD37.8 billion at the end of 2017. It sold USD3.5 billion worth of assets in 2018, and plans to divest a further USD10 billion of assets over the next two years.
This includes divestments already announced following its US shale acquisitions from BHP Group PLC last summer, when it guided for USD5 billion to USD6 billion of asset sales.
Group production in 2018 was 3.7 million barrels of oil equivalent a day on average, 2.4% higher than in 2017, with Upstream production increasing 3.0% year-on-year excluding Rosneft to 2.5 million barrels of oil equivalent per day.
BP's Upstream plant reliability was a record 96% in 2018, it said, with Downstream's at 95% with record refining throughput.
Upstream 2018 underlying RC profit before interest and tax was USD14.55 billion, well up from USD5.87 billion, while Downstream increased to USD7.56 billion from USD6.97 billion.
"We now have a powerful track record of safe and reliable performance, efficient execution and capital discipline," said BP Chief Executive Bob Dudley.
"And we're doing this while growing the business - bringing more high-quality projects online, expanding marketing in the Downstream and doing transformative deals such as BHP. Our strategy is clearly working and will serve the company and our shareholders well through the energy transition."
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